The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE)’s activities pursuant to Act 173 of 2018, Section 12: Training and Technical Assistance on the Delivery of Special Education Services, beginning in SY18-19. Section 12 directs the AOE to undertake specific tasks furthering the programmatic goals outlined by the Act. First, the agency is to assist supervisory unions and school districts (SU/SDs) to expand and improve their delivery of services to students who require additional supports in accordance with the District Management Group (DMG) Report. Further, the AOE is directed to provide technical assistance with the goal of embedding best practices, as described in Act 173, for the delivery of special education services. Those best practices include:
- ensuring core instruction meets most needs of most students;
- providing additional instructional time outside core subjects to students who require additional support, rather than providing interventions instead of core instruction;
- ensuring students who require additional support receive all instruction from highly skilled teachers;
- creating or strengthening a systems-wide approach to supporting positive student behaviors based on expert support; and
- providing specialized instruction from skilled and trained experts to students with more intensive needs.